The Green Words Workshop is an open incubation-lab for reframing & popularising progressive political thought.We draw on the latest research into political decision-making, the role of identity, emotion, narrative, frames & values.

The races are run, the results are in. But what was and will be the cognitive cost of the London Olympic Games? And in what way might the games influence the moral and political attitudes of a generation?

At the Green Words Workshop my colleague Rupert Read and I explore how moral values are generated and communicated, and how they move from the outside world into the depths of the human brain.

This weekend brought us a particularly shocking example of how different conservatives can be from progressives. His Democrat opponents and the left were outraged at a US Republican congressman’s insensitive comment that victims of “legitimate” rape do not get pregnant. Here’s what he said:

“From what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Todd Akin said of pregnancy caused by rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not on the [unborn] child”.

‘Sustainable development’ > Limits to growth; steady-state / dynamic-equilibrium economy.
[’Sustainable development’ is basically a nice way of saying ‘economic growth’; and is unbelievably hubristic (are we really a model? Have we really developed?]

‘The environment’ > Ecosystems, ecology; the Earth / our living planet (though NOT ecosystem-services).
[’The environment’ is not us. WE need to be a part of what we are saving.]

The Tory fantasy has been that by focussing on Europe they could neutralise UKIP. The opposite is true. As anyone with a decent understanding of framing knows, by stoking interest in the opposition’s issues, one stokes support for them too. Every time the Tories talk about Europe, NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY, they increase likely UKIP support. In particular, promising an in-out referendum on the EU certainly INCREASED the basic ‘salience’ of UKIP.

I just want to quickly draw people’s attention to this excellent anti-rape campaign in California, entitled “My strength is not for hurting”. To my mind it takes the key Authoritarian value of Strength and couples it with normally opposing Nurturing priorities. An excellent way, to my mind, to appeal to men’s strength and egos whilst changeling them into doing the right thing.

The campaign’s use of the idea of Strength also enables them to maintain a theme that runs through their website, with pages entitled “Share your Strength” and “Resources of Strength” etc. The website is www.mystrength.org I’ve archived some more of their posters on flickr, here. Good, values-based framing, for a good cause.

In his “radical rethink” of Britain’s benefits system in “A William Beveridge for this century’s welfare state“, the Labour Party’s Liam Byrne has produced a spectacular and instructive example of the failing of contemporary politicians to understand how the human mind works, and consequently to understand how to do politics.

The lessons we can draw from it show how values, not policies or issues or attitudes, are the real framework behind how voters think, and the real key to understanding them, communicating with them and changing society for the better.
It also shows us how the Labour party is not only mimicking the Conservatives in a way that will only harm them and society, but how it is dangerously close to engaging in hate speech.

As part of Britain’s contribution to the ongoing investigations around the speed-of-light controversy generated by the discovery of apparently faster-than-light neutrinos at the Cern/Gran Sasso super-collider laboratories, Prime Minister David Cameron today unveiled a new package of reforms aimed at helping light make its contribution to science and grow to meet the challenge of its newest competitor, the neutrino.

After news of our latest Green Words Workshop report (nz_ref_gww_1) on the New Zealand referendum made it to the South Pacific I’ve been asked by Kiwi campaigner Benjamin Knight to add some specific recommendations for ways in which the pro-MMP campaign could reframe their arguments to counter each of the six myths listed by the Campaign for MMP.

New Zealand’s referendum on voting “reform” this month poses a major threat to anybody who cares about New Zealand’s democracy. Here at the Green Words Workshop we’re concerned that the progressive side is losing ground to a more emotionally and psychologically intelligent right wing. And we’ve seen this happen before. Like in Britain’s disastrously-run and heavily-defeated referendum in May , the question is essentially between a more democratic inclusive voting system (in this case “Mixed Member Proportional”) and the backward 19th century First Past the Post.

There are a number of extremely worrying signs – many of which we watched with horror in the UK referendum – that MMP’s historical lead in the polls could be reversed, with disastrous consequences that would include the decimation of the Green Party in New Zealand, the marginalisation of Maori voices, and a return to minority conservative rule.

One of the most controversial words in green & progressive politics is “growth”. Conversely “growth” is totally uncontroversial in mainstream economics. The need for growth is probably the single foundational principle upon which the global economy is built. Nothing is more important. The US Federal Reserve’s repeated attempts to “re-start” economic growth are at the centre of the narrative about the current economic “crisis”. In fact the crisis itself can be centrally defined as a crisis of lack of growth.